"Various forms of coercion" could be used to accelerate the rollout of ID cards, the idea being that ID cards will remain 'voluntary' for as long as possible, while not having an ID card will become more and more uncomfortable. This, precisely what the government has intended to do all along, is stated baldly in an Identity & Passport Service leak cited by the Sunday People.

A key component of the UK ID card scheme, the central database of fingerprints, may be abandoned, according to a leaked Home Office document obtained by the Observer. The document doesn't suggest entirely scrapping fingerprints, but instead suggests that their value should be assessed for each group of the population enrolled.

Presenting possibly the biggest threat to the dominance of iTunes so far, Amazon.com has announced it will commence an international roll-out of Amazon MP3, it's DRM-free digital music store, this year.

The Federal Communications Commission declared last Friday it would fine Disney-owned ABC network $1.43m for broadcasting a revealing episode of cop show NYPD Blue before the watershed in violation of regulations prohibiting the broadcast of obscene material between 6am and 10pm.

Psychology researchers at Glasgow University say they have increased the accuracy of automated face recognition to 100 per cent. If the claims are true, this development will have far-reaching consequences for privacy and security in modern society.

A man suspected of using computer hacking techniques to steal corporate secrets from a French defence contractor was arrested in Greece last Friday. Police are continuing to hunt for a suspected accomplice reckoned to be living in the UK.

A large US spy satellite has lost power and could hit the Earth in late February or March, government officials have said. The satellite, which is now out of control, could contain hazardous materials, and it's unknown where on our planet it might come down.

Opinion
Data protection, privacy and information law have never been so high profile as in recent months. Following the loss of 25 million people's personal details by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), there has been what seems like a tide of gaffe after slip-up, all resulting in private personal details spilling out into the public domain.

Germany will end Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) next year after a ten years experiment. Public radio stations demanded another €180m to keep it going, but the independent commission responsible for the allocation of licence fees says it is over.

Review
The headline feature of the Asus EN8800GT 1GB is - as the name suggests - the fact that it packs in 1GB of GDDR 3 memory instead of the 512MB that you’ll find on standard GeForce 8800 GT-based graphics cards.

Safe, simple and intuitive is the umbrella promise of a new form of satnav, which replaces the traditional PDA-sized display and matron-like voiceover with a full-size heads-up display on your windscreen.

Analysis
By now we all know the United States has no energy policy for the future. Rather, it does and it's a humiliating one: Global warming is a conspiracy by other countries trying to squelch the American dream and the right to buy elephantine SUVs. As one journalist covering autos for the Los Angeles Times put it in late December: "[Americans] feel they should be able to drive whatever they can afford, disregarding the fact that the sky ...is a part of the public commons."

Despite a lifetime of waiting we don't yet have our flying cars, our rayguns, our space holidays, nor even our robot/brainchipped-monkey butlers. However, from August - if the manufacturers are to be believed - ordinary consumers will finally be able to buy a (marginally) useful jetpack, for just $100,000.

Redmond has scaled back its ambitious plans to get the server party started by sidelining its 2008 version of sequel server – which was originally supposed to hit manufacturing at the end of last year – to the third quarter.

The UK Ministry of Defence is "strongly encouraging" all its personnel to have their DNA recorded. This is supposed to make identification of their remains easier if they should die in a manner - a disastrous air crash, explosion, etc. - which would inhibit recognition by other means.

Analysis
Why the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, had to propose altering capital gains tax (CGT) back in the autumn is pretty simple to explain. There was a certain amount of vociferous shouting (led by the Guardianistas, of course) that the sight of private equity barons paying less tax than their cleaners was a moral outrage that must be stopped. Few stopped to think that the very idea was itself absurd: a lower rate of tax, possibly, but they certainly weren't paying less tax either in total or as a portion of their total earnings. No matter, a band wagon was rolling and something must be done.

Any students hoping to go for a Wii during lesson time will have to hold it for now. A campaign group claims that a scheme suggested by the UK Department of Health (DoH) to introduce the console into classrooms is simply a gimmick.

Every now and then a gadget comes along that makes us wonder what on Earth its purpose is, and here's the latest: a three-in-one mouse with integrated speaker and microphone. Not just a pointing device then, it's also a VoIP unit.

Comments
Alien hunters trawling NASA images for evidence of life have posted what appears to be a little green humanoid in a snapshot taken by the Spirit rover on Mars. The image has since been the focus of a great deal of debate, both informed and otherwise, and you lot were full of interesting theories:

I have been using a PC all my life. I'm a businesswoman and use PowerPoint, video conferencing, Excel, Eord etc as the core media of communication. A friend has advised that I should buy a MacBook instead of another PC laptop. Would it be wise for me to switch over to the Mac as a first time user?

The British government has responded to MPs' concerns regarding the ongoing Galileo Euro sat nav programme. In the view of Her Majesty's ministers the scheme can't be stopped, so there isn't much point arguing about it.

Technology firms will be able to patent software programs following a High Court decision on Friday that could see the UK having closer ties with Europe when it comes to the handling of computer-related inventions.

Nokia is to acquire Trolltech, makers of the popular cross-platform Qt GUI API and widget set. Qt (Cute Toolkit) is used by KDE, one of the two most widely used Linux desktops. It is also used in many cross-platform applications.

When I was young I built up a collection of system error messages. Ok, look, it's not as sad as collecting stamps! It is? Really? Oh well, never mind. Anyway, my recent piece about Borland putting rude words in Quattro Pro got me thinking it was time to revisit that collection.

Analysis
When Dell last week issued a new blade chassis and servers, we knew a certain amount of competitive fury would hit the internet. There's something about blade systems that makes HP, IBM, Sun and Dell particularly hostile. Perhaps that's because blades are some of the more unique and more profitable systems in the x86 market or because there's a firm split between the Haves - HP and IBM - and the Have Nots - Sun and Dell.

Midem
There's another kind of pigopolist, U2's manager Paul McGuinness said today: the giant network operator who profits from music, but doesn't give anything back. McGuinness used a keynote slot at the world's biggest music festival in Cannes today to call for network operators to pay musicians a slice of the pie.